Buckhorn Campground

Buckhorn Campground

Brian Vander Brug / For The Times

Distance: 47 miles one-way. It's no mystery why several outdoor groups have ranked the Buckhorn campground in the Angeles National Forest as one of the top campsites in Southern California. The campground is perched in the forest at 6,300 feet, where the temperatures are cooler and the sky is mostly free of that brown muck that floats over the San Gabriel Valley on hot summer days. The big, green pines and cedars that shade the campground make it easy to forget you are less than an hour's drive from one of the biggest U.S. cities. And then there is the little, gurgling creek that cuts through the campgrounds in the spring, giving campers a lovely water-splashing serenade. -- Hugo Martín

Distance: 47 miles one-way. It's no mystery why several outdoor groups have ranked the Buckhorn campground in the Angeles National Forest as one of the top campsites in Southern California. The campground is perched in the forest at 6,300 feet, where the temperatures are cooler and the sky is mostly free of that brown muck that floats over the San Gabriel Valley on hot summer days. The big, green pines and cedars that shade the campground make it easy to forget you are less than an hour's drive from one of the biggest U.S. cities. And then there is the little, gurgling creek that cuts through the campgrounds in the spring, giving campers a lovely water-splashing serenade. -- Hugo Martín (Brian Vander Brug / For The Times)

Distance: 47 miles one-way. It's no mystery why several outdoor groups have ranked the Buckhorn campground in the Angeles National Forest as one of the top campsites in Southern California. The campground is perched in the forest at 6,300 feet, where the temperatures are cooler and the sky is mostly free of that brown muck that floats over the San Gabriel Valley on hot summer days. The big, green pines and cedars that shade the campground make it easy to forget you are less than an hour's drive from one of the biggest U.S. cities. And then there is the little, gurgling creek that cuts through the campgrounds in the spring, giving campers a lovely water-splashing serenade. -- Hugo Martín